Roman Canal La Retorta - Lagos de Silva

Top channel wall

It is a channel that runs for the most part by the council of Tapia de Casariego of the Principality of Asturias, Spain. Only one section penetrates El Franco. It was built by the Romans in the second century AD. to bring water from the Porcia River to the Salave gold mine. They carried out studies on the same: Schultz, Labandera Campoamor (1968) and Carmen Fernández Ochoa (1979). At present the few remaining remains are in poor conditions, without any signage, with weeds and even in several places destroyed by forest tracks or clearing of hills.

The canal has a length of about 20 km, begins in La Retorta, where there was the Barrosa dam to capture the water for the canal. Continue the route by Alfonsares until arriving at the place called Pena Cortada, here you can clearly see the cut of the rock for the passage of the canal. The track is lost a couple of kilometers and reappears in Molios Novos, between this place and Matafoyada can clearly be seen the upper wall of the canal in some sections. The canal continues to Cubiyedo by a road, currently covered by vegetation. In the place of Bustelo are preserved about 500 m of almost intact channel, although today is totally covered by vegetation, a channel of 3 m is observed. wide and 1'7 m. of depth. From this point the channel does not appear again clearly until shortly before the gold mine of the lakes of Silva in Salave. Here you can see some galleries excavated in the rock with exit to the sea whose purpose would probably be the drainage of the waters of the channel.

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